Understanding party politics in the former Soviet Union: authoritarianism, volatility, and incentive structures

Party politics in the former Soviet Union is fundamentally different from party politics in Western democracies in many ways. Since 1991, two crucial aspects of party politics in the less-than-democratic former Soviet republics have been the impact of authoritarian practices on party politics and the volatile nature of party politics. Starting with the observation that the creation and operation of parties in the former Soviet Union is driven by elite actors, the author seeks to better understand these two aspects of party politics by studying the incentive structures for elite actors from both within the political regimes and outside the region.